ArcaMax

WASHINGTON -- In August, I retreat from the hurly-burly of the contemporary world to the relative peace and quiet of more serene times. This August, I retreated to the 1960s and to the presidential race, which pitted Sen. John F. Kennedy against Vice President Richard Nixon. I read Irwin Gellman's very thoughtful "Campaign of the Century: ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Pope Francis is up to his old tricks again. He has banned the Latin Mass. Beginning this autumn, Roman Catholics will be greeted every Sunday -- and for the truly devout, every day -- with the modern post-Vatican II Mass. They will have no alternative. The Latin Mass has been put out of commission. Did you know it was divisive? I ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Have you been following the massacres in America? It would be difficult to miss them. By the time I finish this column and you have read it, maybe another 20 Americans will have succumbed to mass murder.

There is, in a country composed of a mix of practical people and idealists, the urgent felt need to do something to end the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- There are some 400 million guns in private hands in America. Possibly I exaggerate. Let us say there are only 350 million guns in private hands in America. That still means there are more guns than citizens in America. It is going to take a lot of cops to gather those weapons up. The next time you hear a progressive urging the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Breaking historic precedent has been for many years a specialty of the Democratic Party. It is always presented to the public by the media -- the Democratic underground -- as something that the Republicans are for some reason incapable of doing. Perhaps the Republicans are too timid. Possibly they are too stupid. Of course, it also...Read more

WASHINGTON -- In the good old days, when the liberals flourished, they undertook many grand designs. Some actually worked, for instance, the interstate highway system that now girdles America. The Cold War was another liberal idea. It worked, at least at first, before the liberals went wobbly and the conservatives and independents had to come in...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Some years ago, as the pandemic was making its first stirrings, I heard from assorted pundits across the fruited plane that America was going to be changed forever. We would never get back to pre-pandemic normalcy. We would be wearing masks unto eternity. We would be importuned to wash our hands every time we entered a public ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- For several years now, I have been writing my memoirs in my spare time and have been having a lot of fun with them. There are writers who insist that writing is torture. Bill Buckley was that sort of a masochist, though I must say I never found even a sentence written by him painful to read. He was always stimulating and often ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Take a break from the news. From the stories of war in Ukraine, slaughter of schoolchildren in Texas and mayhem against minorities in Buffalo, New York. Turn your attentions at least temporarily to consider Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee, celebrating her 70th year on the throne. Did you see those gorgeous pictures of the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Once again, it has happened in plain daylight. A mentally sick barbarian laid his paws on military-grade instruments of war, and he went to war against innocent people. Recently, it was Black people because they were Black, I assume. This time, it was children because they were children or defenseless or they had parents who drove ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The day after Robby Mook, the head of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for the presidency, implicated her at the top of a conspiracy to link Donald Trump in 2016 with a Russian bank, I could find no mention of it in the leading newspapers of the Republic, save The Wall Street Journal. The Journal covered Mook's testimony in a ...Read more

CHICAGO -- I am in the Windy City; why is not Washington called the Windy City or the Windiest City? I came with my wife to attend a meeting of the fabled Federalist Society. She is a member of the Society and will participate with all the other assembled lawyers. I shall, for a change, merely listen.

I was raised in Chicago, where I have many ...Read more

Washington -- Do you remember the days when our liberal friends were forever claiming the moral high ground on almost any issue no matter how devoid of moral content the issue might be? They claimed it, of course, on issues of war and peace. "All we are saying is give peace a chance," the chorus would sing out. Yet they even claimed the moral ...Read more